Here is another sign that the discourse of delegitimization post-Gaza that threatens Israel in international circles but which the lobby has succeeded in blocking at the gates of Washington, is nonetheless embedded in American establishment culture. The Harvard Crimson runs an attack on Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren by a member of the Palestinian solidarity group at the school, Abdelnasser Rashid. The piece underlines what the BDS conference at Hampshire last month demonstrated: young Americans know what white phosphorus is; the Palestinian viewpoint is now embraced by many students, and the school newspaper has to express it:
The devastating impact on Gaza’s schools should be of special concern to an institution dedicated to education such as Harvard. Instead, on November 23 Harvard extended an invitation to Michael B. Oren—the Israeli ambassador to the United States—to speak at the Kennedy School. Fittingly, he was rejected by students who attended the event. Oren is a former officer and paratrooper who served as an Israeli army spokesperson during the unwarranted and illegal attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2009.
While the university envisioned a warm reception, it must be recorded that the students took a clear stance against impunity for war crimes. During the question-and-answer session, the vast majority of questions and comments leveled at Oren were critical of his actions and statements on the Gaza invasion and the Goldstone report…
It is imperative that Harvard adopt principled guidelines and vetting practices to ensure that war criminals and their official apologists—regardless of country of origin—not be given a platform at our university.
I’m guessing this is the Rashid who wrote the following as an 11th-grader–
Palestine is my land, and I won’t let you take it – and while you put the world to sleep, I try to wake it.
The waking is happening.
I wish I conclude the same; but I cannot as to the I-P situation–I think the next step is Iran, as envisioned in the original PNAC. Then Syria, again as envisioned. 99% of all USA citizens no nothing at all about the Palestinian situation; the Christian and Jewish Zionists coupled with our whore congress and POTUS, will rule; we will all pay the price–and most will blame it on “camel jockeys” or “sand niggers.” That’s what I see. How many Americans even realize that Obama has merely hired the same roosters to watch our financial henhouses? How many Americans see that Obama care amounts to a redistribution of care to those in need at the expense of those who have earned healthcare? Given the demographics of seniors who worked all their lives and paid into the health kitty, and kids in school and single mothers, who have not–get it?
Obama is now supporting a new line of thought: since the MSM is full of angry cititzens
let’s add to Those who could not, under any reasonable bank due diligence, afford a mortgage must now (like the Big Banks who floated and cashed in on the bundled loans) be saved by reducing (once again) the basic credit tests for “saving them.”
The pro Israel noise machine is enlarging its microphone at C Span, but viewers are starting to talk back.
Matthew Levitt of WINEP spent half-an-hour spouting hasbara, proclaiming himself an “anti terrorism” expert and doggedly spinning the party line that “bad muslims are the problem.” Bad muslimitis “used to be just in Europe but now it’s coming to the US.”
But the majority of callers pushed back against Levitt’s BS, and repeatedly forced him to have to rely on recitations of Israeli grievances with Palestinians to support his bad muslim thesis.
A plurality of callers expressed the notion that “terrorists” are actually those who are fighting back against American and Israeli aggressions. Callers said they would do the same if the shoe were on the other foot. Callers refused to be whipped into a fear frenzy over repetitions of “9/11!!” and called on the United States to curb its bad behavior.
Israel, are you listening? Brand Zionist is fading, the world is getting wise and speaking out.
You are correct. I heard the same on Washington Journal today. They called in from across the USA, and directly confronted the guest, a spokesmen for one of the usual
Israel First stinktanks. He responded with the usual hasbara. This suggests that
American Israel-Firsters are burying their head in the sand. Time will tell who is the real “sand niggers.” The way I see it, the cycle will continue–I suggest “anti-semite”
doesn’t answer why.
Beyond the significance of the printing of such a piece in the Crimson, it is clear to me that the writer of the piece is wrong. That the ambassador of Israel should be allowed to speak at Harvard.
Its not the fact that hes the Israeli Ambassador that’s the problem WJ, its the simple fact that hes an apologist for war crimes.
I don’t see apologists for Slobodan Milosvich getting a free pass to speak as an impartial guest on school campus’s, and neither should the rabidly pro ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people Oren get the same pass.
Are you also going to let the ambassador of Iran speak, too?
Yes, I think the ambassador of Iran should be allowed to speak and if Serbia is a country accepted by either the United Nations or by the U.S. its ambassador should be allowed to speak as well.
But of course, Israel has strong-armed the US into not engaging Iran diplomatically, so conveniently enough, there is no official Iranian voice in the United States. Fancy that.
And do you protest when representatives of Iran are not allowed to speak?
Are you purposefully dense, WJ? The point isn’t to suppress his right to free spech.
It’s not like Oren has some amazing truth to tell people and the Palestinian camp is trying to shut him up.
Gosh, you’re so petty. Can’t you just call us antisemitic and leave?